How do I compare my current lighting with LED lighting?

In the past, we have generally referred to the brightness of a bulb in terms of its wattage, or the amount of power that the bulb uses (or energy consumes). Because of the disparity between incandescent and LED technologies, we have to change our language a bit in order to account for progress. When referring to brightness, we now find ourselves comparing lumens (see Q: What is a lumen?). However, when comparing LEDs with incandescents, there is no easy mode of comparison because the typical incandescent is projecting light in 360 degrees – everywhere, not just where you need it. Because LED lights are directional, they focus all the light they generate exactly where you want it, and nowhere that you don’t.

Another consideration is color temperature. In the past, this has been very difficult to control because you basically got whatever color your bulb produced. Typically, this was a warm white (about 3000K) if you had an incandescent bulb, and a Cool White (around 5000K) if you had a fluorescent bulb. Because the LED is an intelligent, solid-state technology, we are able to produce LEDs that not only produce warm white and cool white, but are able to produce up to 16 million different colors, each a different temperature.